Benjamin and Sherry's West Coast Odyssey Diary: Part 2

Day 2- Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens (Wednesday, June 14th)

Let me just say that I didn't realize that one could not see the mountains when it's cloudy...

Ben and I made our way on south 410 towards Mount Rainier from Seattle in the 2004 Dodge Neon pictured above. On our way, we passed a sign saying that 123 is closed. We figured that we didn't need that road and kept on going. Well, it turns out that we did, and we had to take a huge detour to reach the park (we're talking like three hours out of the way). But, we passed some beautiful scenery on the way- I'm talking stuff that had our mouths agape.

Once we reached the foot of the mountain at the paradise Welcoming Center, we realized that we were not going to be seeing the mountain at all that day. We would sit and stare at pictures in the welcoming center of where Mount Rainier was supposed to be, and all that could be seen was white and more white.

Hoping to catch a glimpse of Mount St. Helens, we angrily left Mount Rainier on a quest to see Mount St. Helens. Ben and I winded up the foggy mountain roads on scary bridges with nothing underneath them...

...and arrived at the Johnston Ridge Conservatory Welcoming Center. It was like a ghost town! The only other vehicles in the parking lot were a truck and a scary looking trolley that served food on busier days. We went up to the lookout point and stared into the white. It was at this moment that I came to HATE clouds. I never had a reason to before, but they ruined the second day of my vacation!!

Day 3- Explore non-coastal Oregon
We left our hotel in Stevenson, WA and rode along highway 84 with the Columbia River Gorge surrounding us. Ben and I made our way to Mt. Hood, and we could actually see it! Filled with excitement, we went racing up to the mountain, only to run into a ski resort (yes it was still open). We stood in the parking lot looking around, "Where's the mountain?" Ben and I looked around and then looked up. And there was the summit of Mt. Hood about 5000 feet up in the air. In our search for the mountain, we ended up on the mountain itself.

We continued down Highway 26, looking at the mountains to the west- Mount Jefferson and The Three Sisters.

We stopped at the High Desert Museum/Zoo and saw a really cute otter, some huge ass birds, and darling little ground squirrels. Notice that I said HIGH DESERT museum/zoo. Yes, it was indeed a desert, complete with sand, desert brush, and turkey vultures.

Ben wanted to remind everyone that, "Only you can prevent forest fires!" This was taken at the High Desert Museum/Zoo. It's the original Smokey the Bear costume from the 1950's.

Ben and I got back in the car and drove to Crater Lake National Park, hoping that the roads were all open so we could see the highest, largest freshwater lake in the country. Ben wanted to go swimming, but I bet the water was only about 40 degrees because the air was about that cold. On the way up, we were surrounded by walls of snow that stood about 10 feet tall.

Don't go away, because Part 3 is coming up next.